Many consumer fluids such as soft drinks are sold in plastic bottles. Most of these bottles are made of a recyclable plastic, such as, Type 1 PET (PolyEthylene Terephthalate). As a result these bottles are recylable and in some states they are refundable. For the purpose of the discussion the term, "bottle," refers to any such recyclable or refundable plastic bottles. The top of such bottles have a narrow threaded "bottleneck" for a twist off cap and a wider pertruding region at the neck base herein refered to as the "bottleneck flange."
It is a common and encouraged practice to recycle plastic bottles. This practice requires sorting, storage, and transport of the bottles. There are two primary channels for recycling bottles, recycling centers and curbside pickup. When returning bottles to a recycling center, the consumer is required to carry the bottles from the home to the center. This typically requires use of an automobile or similar mode of transportation. When using curbside pickup for recycling bottles, the consumer is typically required to sort recyclables and then carry them to the curb where a recycling agent will pickup the bottles. In some cases the recycling agent is required to sort the recyclables.
In some states it is standard practice to return bottles to the vendor or a redemption center for a cash refund. This practice also requires sorting, storage, and transport of the bottles. In particular, many redemption centers have to carefully sort bottles according to product or manufacturer. Additionally, redemption centers must count the number of bottles which the consumer returns to compute the amount of refund.
An unfortunate characteristic of the bottles is that they typically occupy a large volume, which places certain constraints on their handling Additionally, empty bottles are very light-weight and slippery. As a result, it is extremely difficult handling several bottles at one time.
The most common method for handling bottles is using a larger holding container. Large plastic garbage bags or large bins are frequently used. However these mechanisms are typically cumbersome, since such containers require much floor space themselves, are awkward to carry, are difficult to transport in most automobiles, and do not hold many bottles. Another problem with recycling containers is that they do not tend to keep the bottles upright and any residue in the bottles can leak into the container. Also, the container itself requires additional transport once the bottles have been disposed of.